


Relations To Lashton (On Hold)

by the_mentxlly_insxne



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Multi, mental problems
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-01
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-10-28 04:32:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10823817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_mentxlly_insxne/pseuds/the_mentxlly_insxne
Summary: Arin is forced to seek help from her best friends Luke and Ashton when they begin to find out about her multiple mental illnesses and just how severe they are.





	1. Tell Us What You Meant, Baby Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke and Ashton find Arin still awake in the early hours of the morning and try to figure out why she's still awake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This book will be updated once a week on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Enjoy :)

(unedited)

It's nearly one in the morning and I have my Ariana Grande Cat Ear Headphones on so I can't hear a thing besides my incredibly loud music.

I'm staring down at my hands which are in my lap and am vaguely paying attention to the flashing lights of my headphones that are pulsing to the beat of the music; though, most of my attention is just on my thoughts.

I can't sleep due to my insomnia and sleep paralysis. I'm lucky to get even ten minutes of sleep each night because of my sleeping issues so most nights I connect my Cat Ear Headphones to my phone with Bluetooth and blare my music almost to its maximum volume. Sometimes I blare it at maximum volume.

I want to stop focusing on my thoughts for just a few minutes, but I know that won't happen. I have other mental issues too, it's not just sleep paralysis and insomnia. I also have severe anxiety, mild PTSD, a bit of depression, the occasional hallucination, and the voices that are always talking in my head. It makes life incredibly hard.

Even though most people would be really tired by now, I'm not. I don't have an excess amount of energy to get rid of, but my body has gotten used to the very small amount of sleep so I don't get tired very easily and I don't need as much sleep to have enough energy to get through the day. 

I don't notice when my bedroom door opens so when the light tap on my left shoulder comes, I jump so much that my headphones fall off and my phone slips from my hands, landing a few feet away from me and now on the floor. 

Luke and Ashton are standing in my room. Luke is the one who tapped my shoulder and he looks a little scared and a little confused by my actions. Ashton is standing in the doorway with the same expression as Luke. 

I glare at both of them as I inspect my headphones to make sure they're not damaged; the music still playing. I proceed to get up and grab my phone, making sure it's okay as well before pausing my Spotify playlist so that the music stops playing and the room is suddenly very quiet. The music had been playing loudly enough that you could hear it like it was on speakers even though the headphones weren't on speaker mode.

I look at the digital clock on the bottom shelf of the black shelves on the opposite wall from the one I am now leaning on while sitting on my bed again. The bright green numbers of the clock read 1:11 and I realize that both the boys currently standing in my room thought that I had gone to bed around ten. 

"Why are you still up?" Luke asks me, his voice full of suspicion like he thought I had been doing something illegal. 

"I couldn't sleep so I decided to listen to some music." I keep my answer vague and to the point, hoping that he won't ask any more questions. Luke and Ashton may be my best friends and the closest things I have to family, but I don't like talking about my mental problems with anyone.

"Your music was really loud." Ashton states the obvious with that one. 

"That was the point." It slips out of my mouth before I can stop myself from saying it. I have to resist the urge to just walk out of the room or put my headphones back on. I've had a pretty bad day in the first place and I don't need anything else to go wrong.

"What?" They say at the same time, both equally confused. 

"Just forget I said it." I flick my hand towards the door, trying to get them to leave me alone. I know that if they start questioning me, the voices will get louder and meaner, and if  
it's really bad, I'll start having flashbacks. It's bad enough that I'm as anxious as I am, but if I get more worried in any way, I doubt I'll be able to pull myself out of the hole that I will have fallen into. 

"Tell us what you meant, baby girl." As he speaks, Luke keeps his voice calm, steady, reassuring, and as calming as he possibly can. When he calls me baby girl, I get so close to caving in and telling them everything. They do deserve to know. The most I've told them is that I get anxious easily and I have some bad experiences in my past. 

In order to keep myself from telling them, I keep my mouth clamped shut and just shake my head so that they know I'm not going to tell them what I meant. 

Ashton finally steps completely into the room and walks over to me, standing next to Luke, but a little closer to me than his boyfriend is. I stand up and position myself so that I’m standing in front of them.

"Arin, sweetheart. Please tell us what you're talking about. We just want to know that you're okay, princess." Of course, he knows that pet names will get me to talk. With him using two of them and with Luke having used one just a minute ago, I can't hold it in anymore. 

A few of the tears I had been holding back finally fall. Once the first ones are out, the rest just come flooding out after them. 

As soon as Luke and Ashton see that I'm crying, they both envelope me in a hug and are holding me tight to their bodies as my crying turns into loud sobs. I can't control it anymore, it just doesn't seem possible at the moment.

"It's okay baby, just let it out." They both whisper comforting words like that to me as I start to run out of tears to cry, but every time I think I'm almost done, more tears begin to run down my cheeks. 

My sobs eventually turn into small whimpers and only a few tears are left. Sometime during the whole thing, Luke and Ashton had brought me back to my bed and sat down with me, their backs against the wall and me in their laps, leaning against both of them.

Luke is running a hand through my hair and Ashton is rubbing circles into my back. I'm facing the two boys and my forehead rests partially on Luke's left shoulder and partially on Ashton's right. 

We sit like that for a few more minutes before Ashton asks, "Do you feel better now, kitten?" His voice is soft and comforting, but I can still hear the slight concern he's trying to hide. 

I sit up a little bit and nod my head, my eyes staring down at my hands which are in my lap again.

"I guess I have to tell you what I meant now." 

"It can wait if you don't want to talk about it right now, but we want you to tell us eventually. We just want you to be okay."

"I can try."

**~*~*~*~*~**

Word count: 1201


	2. I'm Sorry For Not Telling You Sooner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arin starts explaining her mental issues.

(unedited)

I sit there for a minute, trying to get my thoughts together just enough so that I can explain everything to the two boys who are staring at me expectantly.

Looking up at Luke and Ashton, I can already feel more tears begin to prick my eyes. This is going to be harder than I would have ever been able to imagine.

Both boys are looking at me, concern written all over their features. It's hard to know that by telling them, I'm going to be putting so much pressure on them. I don't know how they'll react, but I do know that it's going to hurt them to know.

This is why I've kept it a secret for so long. 

I move out of their laps and sit in front of them, my body close enough to the edge of the bed that I could all off just by leaning back a little bit and my knees touching Ashton's right knee and Luke's left knee.

"Before I start" - they look at me expectantly - "I just wanted to say that I'm sorry for not telling you sooner." A look of confusion crosses Luke's face and Ashton just looks worried.

"I guess I'll start with the anxiety. I've told you that I have it, but not how bad it is. I normally have six to eight panic attacks between eight at night and three in the morning. I have about four during the rest of the day.

"I'm obviously really good at hiding them, otherwise you would've already known about them."

The two boys are a lot calmer than I thought they would be. Luke still looks confused, but less so and Ashton looks even more concerned than before, though he's not making any moves to come closer. 

"Then there's the insomnia. I'm lucky to get twenty to thirty minutes in every night, an hour at the absolute max. I rarely get more than a couple hours every week.

"That's why I'm still up. I spend most of my nights listening to music and thinking. I hate being stuck just thinking, but I can't stop. It would be such a relief to not have to think so long and hard about everything. It almost physically pains me."

I can't handle looking at the two boys anymore. Instead I stare down at my hands again. 

"Alongside the insomnia, I also have sleep paralysis. Whenever I do get any sleep, nightmares that are caused by PTSD wake me up and leave me paralyzed in my bed while shadows and things that aren't really there terrorize me for hours. 

"The sleep paralysis is one of the main reasons I don't 'wake up' until around ten in the morning. I also find it genuinely hard to get out of bed and face the world every morning."

Ashton grabs my chin and makes me look at him. 

"Why didn't you tell us before?"

"I'm sorry, I just couldn't handle telling people about how fucked up my brain is. It makes me feel vulnerable and you know that I hate feeling vulnerable."

He sighs and pulls me back into their laps, my face now buried in Ashton's chest and his hands running gently through my hair while Luke strokes my back.

I don't want to tell them that there's more, but I can't tell them about just a few of the things that are going on since I already said I would tell them everything.

“There,” I take a shuddering breath, “There’s more.”

Instead of waiting for either of them to speak again, I go straight into the next subject of how fucked up my brain is.

“The PTSD is also a pretty big problem. It tends to cause panic attacks, but most of the time they come just because they can.

“It comes from what happened with my twin brother and my father when I was thirteen.”

I realize too late that they didn't know anything about me having a twin brother or a father who had ever been present in my life. I had kept that information hidden from everyone. Only my mom knew, and she passed away about a year before I met Luke and Ashton as well as their friends Michael and Calum. 

All of them knew about my mother having passed a while back and that my father wasn't and still isn't present in my life, which is the entire reason that I live with Luke and Ashton. I'm incredibly lucky that they agreed to let me stay with them. 

At first it was only because I needed somewhere to stay while I worked on getting back on my own feet, but it soon became that I didn't think I could handle living somewhere without them. Luke and Ashton were my two closest friend and Michael and Calum were also very close to me.

After the first couple months of living with Ashton and Luke, Calum and Michael coming over so often that it was like they lived there too, I had become so comfortable around them that I never wanted to leave. It wasn't a good thing, being so attached to the four of them to the point that I wouldn't be able to survive without them. 

Another couple months passed and I accepted the fact that I couldn't live on my own and that I needed the constant support no matter how little it was. Though, with the boys it was never a small amount of support, it was as much support as they could possibly give me which happened to be a very large amount of it. I was very appreciative and still am.

“Arin, sweetie?” I snap out of my thoughts and face the fact that I still have to explain the rest of my mental issues. I just hope that I can handle bringing up the things I've tried so hard to never think of again back to the front of my mind.

**~*~*~*~*~**

Word count: 1001


	3. Don't Change The Subject, Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arin relives the worst part of her past while telling Luke and Ashton about it, but ends up with an unwanted surprise because of it.

(unedited)

I stay silent for another couple seconds before speaking again, not bothering to acknowledge that Luke had said something.

“After that comes the voices in my head and the occasional halluci-” Ashton cuts me off.

“Don't change the subject, love.”

I know that he wants me to tell them about my brother and dad, but I don't think I can handle talking about it. It's been pushed so far into the back of my mind and it’s such a terrible memory it will physically pain me to try and bring it to the surface, let alone tell Luke and Ashton.

“I don't, I don't think I can handle it.” What's the point in lying to then now? Why not just tell them that I'm too fucked in the head to tell them?

“You can do it muffin.” How can they come up with so many pet names? It is so hard to say not to them when they call me these things, especially because I've always had a soft spot for those types of couple things.

As I try to start talking again, I can't find the words and I stutter and stop speaking multiple times, all in an attempt to tell my deepest secrets to the two people I am closest to.

“It's okay baby girl, try to relax.” Just the fact that they're both being so supportive helps me to get myself together. 

I try to get my muscles to loosen up and be a bit less tense, and it only works a little bit, but it's still something. 

Once I've managed to somewhat relax, I start to put the words together in my head to form actual sentences and plan out what I'm going to say before I try to say it. 

“I guess, I guess I'll start with my twin brother. I know I never told you about him, but it was because I had tried my hardest to forget that he had ever existed.” I have to speak slowly so as not to stutter too much or start messing up the words again.

“His name was Archer. He was the person I trusted most in the world. Even when I thought I had nobody to go to, I could always go to him. He was always there for me.”

It’s almost too much for me to handle. I haven’t talked about Archer since I was fourteen when I was finally able to push him and everything that had happened so far into the back of my mind that I never thought of him, my dad, or just my family in general. Not even my mom, who was constantly trying to be with me.

She said that she just wanted some mother daughter time, but I know she just wanted to make sure I was okay and that I wasn’t going to do anything stupid while in the state of mind that I was in.

“Everything was fine until the day we turned thirteen. He and my dad had come up to me and said they had a surprise for me. I wasn’t suspicious at all, just happy that they had done something special for me.

“We all got in the car, my dad and Archer in the front and me in the back.”

My voice cracks at the end of the sentence and I have to stop talking for a couple minutes to keep myself from freaking out too much and crying.

“Th-they took m-me to.” I can’t finish my sentence before I start crying again, the tears flooding down my face. Having to form words and create sentences to talk about the terrible things in my past is too much for me to handle. 

I hate that I’m letting Luke and Ashton see me as loud sobs escape my mouth and tears flow down my face and an increasing pace, but I know they don’t care that I look terrible right now or that I’m getting their shirts wet from my tears. They just want me to be okay. 

I also know that it’s hard for them to have to ask me to tell them all this. They know that it’s causing me pain, but they keep pushing through because they need to know, they deserve to know. 

After I had lived with Luke and Ashton for about a year, I had realized that I couldn’t live without them. At the same time, I had also realized that I loved both of them. I knew that they were in a relationship and I knew that they were both very far off limits, but I couldn’t stop myself from being so attached to them and loving them as much as I do.

They know that I love them, but they think that I love them as though they are my brothers. And they love me as though I am their sister. 

Even though I appreciate them loving me in anyway and being here for me, I still can’t help but wish that they loved me in a different way.

I could never ask that of them, though. They were nice enough to take me in when I needed help and let me stay when I was obviously not capable of living on my own. I could never ask them to love me at all, yet alone threaten their own relationship so that they could love me. 

I’m already incredibly that they love me as a sister, and I will never bring myself for more than that.

Tears won’t stop streaming down my face and I can faintly hear Ashton and Luke calling my name in the background, but it’s barely there. 

It’s so hard to hear anything over the voice yelling at me again. They had been silent from the moment that Luke and Ashton came in, but now they’re back and as loud as ever. 

**~*~*~*~*~*~**

Word count: 986


	4. And Now I'm All Alone And Vulnerable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arin finds herself in a park in a part of the city she's never been to before and the voices refuse to leave her alone as she thinks back to her most recent decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first ~ marks the beginning of the voices speaking and the second ~ marks the end of the voices speaking.

(unedited)

It was all too much. I couldn't even let Luke and Ashton comfort me. I jumped out of their laps and ran out of the room, far away from them. I ran out of the house completely, not closing the front door behind me. I don't know how long I ran, or where I ran to, but the anxiety won't go away and I don't have my phone or anything that would help me fix this.

I remember that Luke and Ashton tried to follow me, I had looked back as I ran down the street. They had been so shocked that I had left so abruptly that they hadn't started following right away. But the time they made it out the door and down to the sidewalk, I was already out of their sight, though I could still see them. I only caught a brief glimpse of their worried faces before I rounded the corner and kept running, trying to stay steady on my feet as my body trembled rather violently and tears blurred my vision to the point where I could barely see.

I kept stumbling over the concrete and I think I almost got hit by a car a couple of times from running into the street without checking for cars. 

I don't recognize the part of town I'm in, but it doesn't matter right now. All that matters is getting the memories to stop flashing through my vision, the voices to stop screaming at me so loudly that my ears feel like they're going to burst. 

Putting my hands over my ears, I try to get the voices to shut up and leave me alone, but they just get louder and louder. They’re screaming about what I should do to fix everything, to get my brother and dad back. But it’s already too late, they’re gone. I don’t want them back, I want them to disappear from my memories like they had never even existed. 

It’s too much. It’s always been too much. It will never stop being too much.

I can’t handle it and I don’t have Luke and Ashton to help me through it. I never should’ve left. It was one of my dumbest decisions. And now I’m all alone and vulnerable. 

~They’re just one call away. All you have to do is press that button and they’ll be back. You need them. You can’t live without your dad or your brother and you know it. No need to cause yourself more pain.~

There are people all around me, screaming at me and telling me to get myself together. A huge crowd watching me writhe in pain and sorrow while curled up in a ball in the middle of some park. 

Too many voices for me to hear one specific person, but I can hear everything they’re saying loud and clear as though I can hear them individually. 

My body is shaking violently, and it feels like my bones are going to shatter into millions of pieces. I’m in immense pain, but I’m also numb at the same time. It’s as though the entire weight of the world is pushing down on my lungs and the weight of everything else in existence is pushing in on my ears.

The pain gets worse and the crowd gets bigger. There are more and more people shoving their way through the sea of people just so that they can scream at me. Their words are hurtful and mean and I can no longer hear what everyone is saying, but I still hear most of them loud and clear.

Someone grabs onto my arm and I scream, struggling to get away from them. Someone else grabs onto my other arm and I’m too weak to get away. 

Then I’m pulled up from the ground and onto my feet, but I can’t feel my legs and can’t stay standing so whoever pulled me off the ground picks me up and starts carrying me. 

I’m scared and tired, and I don’t know what to do or how to deal with any of it.

I try to turn around and see what’s going on, and the crowd has disappeared. There isn’t a single person in my line of sight.

No longer struggling to get away from the two men who are carrying me, I let my body go limp as I try to get the voices to leave me alone or at least lower their volume. 

I keep my eyes closed too, not wanting them to focus on things and make me confused. 

I wish that Luke and Ashton were here. I could really use their comfort. Why did I think it was a good idea to just get up and run? I should’ve just gone into the bathroom or something so that I could calm down a little bit, not run away into an unknown and dangerous part of town.

If I could just fall unconscious, then I wouldn’t have to deal with this for a while. Even the voices would disappear. 

The two men carrying me are trying to speak to me, but I can’t make out what they’re saying. Everything but the voices is muffled and hard to understand.

~You're really letting these men just take you? You could be killed you idiot. But maybe that's not such a bad thing. We've been wanting you dead for quite some time now.~

I've been wanting me dead for a while now too. Then maybe the voices would leave me alone for once. That would be nice.

~Or maybe you'll be raped again. Just goes to show what you deserve. First your brother and father do it, now these two men might do it too. That would be fun, getting to hear your screams for help even though no one will be able to hear you. Just like it was last time.~

I can't tune them out. Normally I can find a way to ignore them, but it's all too much and my mind is already too weak as it is, but this just makes it worse. Now would be a great time to lose consciousness.

~You think you're gonna lose consciousness? That's funny. We'll make sure you stay awake. It's not fun to scream at you when you can't even hear us. There's no point to it. But when you're awake we can torture you with just our words.

Do you like that idea? We do. I think we're gonna bring it up a notch. Hope you're ready, not.~

**~*~*~*~*~**

Word count: 1090


End file.
